At Funeral Service, Tears and Laughter Celebrate the Life of Metro-North Mass Murderer Ellen Brody

Husband Hints at Lawsuit Against the Railroad His Bloody Bride Attacked; the Railroad Should Sue Him!

[Previously, at WEJB/NSU: “Metro-North Crash was a Mass Murder-Suicide, Not an Accident; ‘A Split-Second Decision’; ABC News’ Diana Williams Lied About Attack; Did She Suspect Killer Ellen Brody was a Terrorist? (Photos)”]

 

 

Murder victim Robert Dirks (Family photo) 

Murder victim Walter Liedtke 

Murder victim Joseph Nadol (Photo: J.P. Morgan) 

Murder victim Aditya Tomar 

Murder victim Eric Vandercar 

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

I’ve gotten a lot of love over the years from the Lubavitchers (Chabad) who, as a group, are the best Judaism has to offer. They love their fellow Jews, but this was one Jew whom no Jew with a conscience can love. We can maybe—maybe—forgive her family for being blinded by grief and love, perhaps for a week or two. However, that does not cover her husband’s suggestion that he is thinking of suing Metro-North which, if anything, should be suing him.

The funeral service should have shown pictures of Ellen Brody’s dead five murder victims, and remembered their lives.

And if any reader thinks Ellen Brody got a Jewish bonus, so that her mass murder is swept under the rug, I can assure him that if yours truly had been the killer, that it would have been reported and recorded by the authorities as a mass murder in all its evil. There may be a “rich Jew,” or a “rich female Jew” bonus, but there is definitely no “Jew bonus,” or my experience with New York City cops and prosecutors, heck, my whole life would have been very different. (Actually, in that case my life would have been immeasurably diminished, because I would have married the wrong girl, and had the wrong son!)
 

Mourners after the funeral service in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., for Ellen Brody, who was killed when a Metro-North train struck her sport utility vehicle. Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times
 

Ellen Brody, S.U.V. Driver in Metro-North Crash, Is Mourned
By Lisa W. Foderaro
February 6, 2015
New York Times

DOBBS FERRY, N.Y. — The woman whose sport utility vehicle was at the center of the train crash that claimed six lives, including her own, was remembered on Friday morning in a packed funeral service here for what was described as a larger-than-life personality and her devotion to family and friends.

Speculation has swirled for days around the actions of the woman, Ellen Brody, who on Tuesday night drove her Mercedes-Benz over a rail crossing in Valhalla, N.Y. At the service at Chabad of the Rivertowns, though, her family, friends and rabbi set aside the circumstances that precipitated the deadliest crash in Metro-North Railroad history and focused instead on her life.

“Her family was everything to her,” Rabbi Benjy Silverman, co-director of the synagogue, said of Ms. Brody. “She was their biggest fan and supporter. Her beautiful soul always found beauty within others. She felt a deep connection with everyone she encountered.”

Her husband, Alan, and the couple’s three daughters took turns remembering Ms. Brody, 49, who lived with her family nearby in the Edgemont section of Greenburgh, and had worked in a jewelry store in Chappaqua, N.Y. Mr. Brody touched on the accident only once at the beginning of his eulogy, saying that his wife “was taken from us in a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.”
 

Play Video|0:34
Outside Ellen Brody’s Funeral
Outside Ellen Brody’s Funeral

A friend of the woman who was killed when she drove her sport utility vehicle over a rail crossing and was hit by a Metro-North train said that if this happened to her, it “could happen to anybody.”
 

[The hell, it could! The Boss has come close to murdering me a few times, but never a bunch of strangers whom she had no reason to bear ill will.]

Video by AP on Publish Date February 6, 2015. Photo by Karsten Moran for The New York Times.

He also made a critical reference to the rail crossing where Ms. Brody drove forward into the path of an oncoming commuter train after she stopped to inspect a gate that had dropped onto her vehicle. The Brodys live in lower Westchester County, south of the crash scene, where there are fewer at-grade crossings.

“Ellen was on her way to meet a new client and somehow she wound up in a strange, unfamiliar place,” said Mr. Brody, a native of South Africa, referring to the crossing on Commerce Street, one of the streets onto which an accident on the Taconic Parkway had forced traffic on Tuesday. “I once drove there in that area and I remember thinking, ‘You know, this looks like my old home in Africa,’ ” he said. “I also remember thinking, ‘Are you kidding?’ Who could imagine that a major commuter railroad runs through this?”

At the front of the orange-brick synagogue stood an oversize head shot of Ms. Brody wearing the wide smile that several speakers said accompanied her lively, infectious personality. Mr. Brody remembered his wife’s “optimism” the last time they spoke on the phone.

“That was exactly the same spirit of the girl I met back in 1989 at a friends’ reunion in Queens,” he said, choking back tears. “Somehow, she stood out in the crowd and her youthful effervescence caught my attention. That enthusiasm, that effervescence, that exuberance, it never lacked. It never got old. It was her gift.”
 

Photo
Ms. Brody died Tuesday. Credit Family photo via Jeff Schaeffer, via Associated Press
 

He and others recalled some of her enthusiasms — dancing, comedy, matchmaking, entertaining, storytelling, networking, volunteer work and celebrating the achievements of her three daughters, Danielle, Julia and Alexa. The three girls stood at the podium together, caressing and comforting one another as they each spoke about their mother.

Again and again, Ms. Brody was recalled as warm and outgoing. Danielle, her eldest daughter, said: “She was the only person I knew who made friends every single day: on a line in the supermarket, at the bank, in the jewelry store.”

Her youngest daughter, Alexa, said her mother was selfless in tending to the three girls’ needs. “Anytime I had even the smallest thing on my mind, I knew I could come and talk to you and that you would listen,” she said.
“If I was stressed — even the slightest bit of stress — you would drop everything you were doing, staying up until 2 in the morning to find me an A.P. bio tutor.”

Ms. Brody’s middle daughter, Julia, described a close-knit family united by her parents’ love and a sense of humor. The Brodys, she said, used to joke that they would make the perfect subject for a reality TV show. “We had a name for it — the Brody Brunch,” she said. “My mom was so funny. She told the best stories. My friends probably say that I tell good stories and that I add every single detail. I learned that from my mom.”

During the service, sobs and laughter punctuated the long, detailed reminiscences from her immediate family. Rabbi Silverman focused on what Ms. Brody had achieved, rather than what she would miss.

“The family was in such a good place, and then tragedy happened,” he said. “But I think that’s the point. In the 49 years that she was alive, she got it done. She raised three special daughters and brought them to where they need to be, with a solid foundation and a beautiful future ahead of them.” He added, “She couldn’t have possibly given any more.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 7, 2015, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Driver of S.U.V. in Metro-North Crash Is Mourned.